It's hard to predict what will transpire in between me writing this article and it being published. A day is becoming a lifetime in the fast paced waves of student protests energising South Africa.
I argue here that student fees are also a Trojan horse ushering in a valuable opportunity to resist and rewrite all the post-1994 political narratives we have been fed and led to believe.
The apartheid vestiges of inequity remain intact - worse in post-1994 society because we are continually led to believe that change is happening - "any minute now, just wait!" - but has been inconsistent and lacklustre. Like anti-heroes in the tragicomedy, absurdist play Waiting for Godot, we have been duped. We, young people, have finally realised that nobody is coming, this waiting has all been a waste of time, and the only thing more ridiculous than continued patience, is continued belief in a non-existent saviour. Rising to our feet, awoken to our postcolonial nightmare, the soothing governmental promises - "there, there, it was just a bad dream, go back to bed, it will all be fine in the morning" - can no longer be trusted. The sun never rises.
A new awareness
This new awareness, a mercurial consciousness, has found confidence in successive earlier moments of critical questioning. Broader discursive trends of disruption since our 2014 national elections have given us a permission to be brave. In particular, the urgency and stubborn audacity of the Economic Freedom Fighters; the resilience of public protector Thuli Madonsela in calling truth to power; the decorum-busting antics in Parliament; the first ever interruption of a State of the Nation address; and the startling and spine-chilling massacre at Marikana. These events fed into a rumbling underlying energy - manifest in poverty, inequality, and exclusion - ready to erupt and disrupt. We are no longer licking the abusive boots of democratically elected impotence. We are (finally) living through a time marked by the theme of radical dissent. And it has been worth the wait. There was no gold at the end of the rainbow (nation). Only a cruel and laughing leprechaun named Privilege.
University of the Witwatersrand student Raees Noorbhai reflects on "the fierce urgency of now" spoken by Martin Luther King Jr. If tomorrow has finally become today, free higher education is an idea whose time has arrived. Our dreams can no longer be deferred. Our revolution will no longer be suspended. Our trust in authority is an evaporated history. We have been prompted to take charge of our lives, our future and the direction of our country. "The ordinary, impotent modes of discourse had been turned on its head," writes Noorbhai. Dr Sarah Godsell, a poet and Wits graduate, agrees: "When there has been no space, no response, no listening - the protest grows into a space where it will get a response."
Truly sad
Post-1994 discourses have created versions of reality divorced from people's lived experiences. For example, the narrative of hard work - "Just work hard, try hard, keep at it, have faith, maybe next time" -conceals an oppressive system that severely limits the possibilities for poor black students. David Dickinson, student rep on the Wits council, confirms 3 000 students were financially excluded in 2015 - despite meeting academic requirements. Encouraging students to simply work harder - either academically or by getting part-time jobs - reveals a naive narrative of what enables student success. Historically disadvantaged students who succeed via this type of 'hard work' do so in spite of the system, not because of it. Even a broken clock is correct twice a day.
It is ironic, truly sad, that our universities have morphed in neocolonial vestiges. Notwithstanding some success in the last 20 years, undoing 300 years of external and internal colonialism is slow and painful. How far have we come in terms of improving access to black staff and students, supporting them in the system, decolonising curricula, reviving marginalised knowledge agendas, and making universities in Africa look like African universities? The answers to these questions require systematic investigation, hopefully the topics of imminent research, widely publicised so that we have clarity on the current state of affairs beyond anecdotal evidence. At face value, the answers appear bleak. It is tragic that university spaces designed to provide intellectual, social and perhaps moral leadership to a nation have stifled themselves into bureaucracies striving for market relevance devoid of social relevance.
Narrative disruption via hashtags on Twitter are essential. The domino effect gives access to those of us outside of the immediate physical spaces of protest the opportunity to offer solidarity. From #RhodesMustFall in early 2015, #RhodesSoWhite, #OpenStellenbosch, #TransformWits, #KingGeorgeMustFall, #FeesMustFall and #NationalShutdown, these are more than just trendy online catchphrases. They empower a movement's self-definition.
New possibilities
New words enable new narratives, new possibilities, new dreams.
It is tragic also that the mainstream commercial media - dry, sterile, disconnected, sensational, predictable and irrelevant - have narrated these protests as chaotic, dangerous and misguided. All mass action will attract rogue elements. It is the nature of emotionally infused collectives that some people will overstep normative boundaries and ignore the consequences. The implications of this are best left for separate analysis. My point is that news media generally cannot be trusted, so social media spaces take over with #TheRealWitsStory asserting itself as having the right to write its own history on Twitter; and independent websites like The Daily Vox filling the void, reporting quickly and fairly, embedding its journalism in a necessary agenda of social justice. Journalists and editors, if they are to remain progressive and sensitive to our zeitgeist - if they want to be found on the right side of history when their content is analysed for studies yet to be done - must make proactive editorial decisions to destabilise powerful and presumptuous narratives that cast doubt on the rightfulness of decolonisation. Hiding behind the privileged luxury of false neutrality only helps solidify the problematic status quo.
It is also ironic that headlines of fear and loathing, casting protestors as dangerous and disorganised, have ignored the other side - the safety, family, assurance, and nurturance provided within and amongst the networks of student movements. How do we explain the awe-inspiring ripple effect of solidarity, campus after campus, that emerged without a central organising body, without a single identifiable leader, without agreed upon terms and references, without top-down action plans?
The organic rise of these social movements, interdependent and, perhaps, ancestrally infused with a higher quest towards a true humanity, have provided for each other an emotionally cathartic and safe space to express itself and become itself. This collective safety protects its composite individuals from the structural violence and privileged narratives that insidiously undermine their existence everyday. These group identities encourage autobiographical impulses, leading to subaltern stories being told, struggles being heard, and dreams being worded. These new voices destabilise the rainbow nation mythology and 'better life for all' sloganeering we have trough-fed.
Fourteen universities in seven provinces have been rightfully disrupted. It is twenty one years since the promises of free education. The twisted metaphor of turning 21 is perhaps apt: in being given the keys to freedom, therein lies the shocking realisation that we were never free at all.
Suntosh R Pillay is a clinical psychologist in Durban, independent writer, and board director of the Mandela Rhodes Community. He is currently doing a PhD at UKZN. To dialogue, tweet @suntoshpillay
IOL